Tuesday 29 March 2011

Elephants and Errors

I have recently been wondering how the story of Jacob would have turned out if he a) hadn't swopped his lentil slosh for older brother Esau's birthright and b) hadn't followed his manipulative mum's advice, pulled the goat hair over his own skin and the wool over his father Isaac's eyes. How would God have fulfilled His promise to Rebecca without all that human deviousness? Is anything impossible with God? Or was the prophecy a foretelling of what would happen precisely because God was reckoning with human deviousness, knowing jolly well how twisted we are? Was that fair? My idealism would like to have seen God doing it without man's messing with the works. But God isn't an idealist. Knowing us, He can't afford to be.

It's one of those wonderful examples of paradox in the Bible, indicating that neither Calvinism nor Arminianism will cut it - one needs a balance of both. This synthesis cannot be mentally grasped, He must be known; ie. experienced and as long as we haven't tasted Him, we won't be able to see the truth - that the elephant is a good deal more wonderful than we thought, while we were trying to describe it with the blindfold on. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!

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